Fight For Philly takes on Comcast, Philly school funding with bologna sandwiches [photos]

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Unless you were outside the Comcast Center in Center City Philadelphia Friday afternoon.

Fight for Philly handed out bologna sandwiches “to symbolize Comcast giving out baloney to Philadelphia citizens while taking their own free lunch in the form of tax breaks like a building abatement and loopholes like the Delaware loophole.”

The sandwiches were part of a rally to demand fair funding for Philly schools, and a shot at Comcast exec David Cohen.

Per the Fight for Philly press release about the rally, “Comcast Executive VP David Cohen, a top donor to Gov. Corbett, was involved in negotiations with the city and state that led to a bad school funding deal with inadequate money from Harrisburg.”

“The company and its executives are passionate supporters of education and countless nonprofit organizations in Philadelphia,” John Demming of Comcast’s corporate communications department told NewsWorks in response to the rally. “In fact, in the Philadelphia region, since 2001, we have contributed more than $159 million in cash and in-kind support to nonprofits.”    

Demming says in 2012 Comcast paid more than $354 million of state and local taxes and fees to Pennsylvania and its localities, including more than $70 million in Philadelphia.

Fight for Philly was joined by members of Philadelphians Allied for a Responsible Economy, SEIU 32BJ, Philadelphia Unemployment Project, Jewish Labor Committee, Decarcerate PA and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.